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The EU must impose stricter rules on Chinese ecommerce platforms to stop European companies from being overwhelmed by competitors such as Temu, the head of Poland’s largest online marketplace has said.
Marcin Kuśmierz, chief executive of Allegro, said Chinese retailers were “pumping up marketing spending in Poland and in Europe” in response to a tougher trading environment in the US and the shift could be “just the prelude” to what the EU might face if the US escalates its tariff campaign.
“Europe has to realise the underlying threat behind a possible tariff war between the US and China, and that is that Chinese retailers may relocate resources here, flooding Europe with goods,” Kuśmierz said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“The way things stand, smaller European [companies] will suffer, and many of them may not survive the Chinese competition.”
Chinese online retailers have recently scaled back US investment after US President Donald Trump imposed new tariffs and closed a tax loophole that had allowed them to undercut rivals. While Trump is targeting China, his tax change also prompted postal services from more than a dozen other countries to suspend low-cost parcel shipments to the US.
Temu’s monthly active users (MAUs) in the US fell by an average of 35 per cent in the four months to August, according to market intelligence group Sensor Tower. Over the same period, its MAUs in the largest European markets surged, including by up to 70 per cent in France and 50 per cent in Germany.
Clothing retailer Shein has not cut US advertising to the same extent and its US MAUs increased by 2 per cent over the past four months. But it has also expanded in Europe, with 15 per cent growth in Germany and 10 per cent in France, Sensor Tower data show.
Temu declined to comment. Shein called claims that it benefited from unfair competition rules “baseless allegations plainly made in bad faith”. It said that it would continue to invest in Poland and comply with all EU tax and other regulations.
Last month, the European Commission said that a preliminary investigation found Temu was selling some illegal products.
The Commission has been pushing for a package of reforms to tackle the flood of ecommerce imports. This includes scrapping the import duty exemption for parcels worth less than €150, but this proposal is yet to be approved by EU member states.
“The sheer amount of ecommerce imports is putting increasing pressure on customs authorities, with goods bought online already accounting for over 97 per cent of all customs declarations,” the Commission said.
In Poland, Temu overtook Allegro earlier this year as the most visited online platform, according to Polish research company Gemius. But Kuśmierz noted that visits did not necessarily translate into purchases and said Allegro was still increasing revenues strongly. When the company reports second-quarter earnings next month, “investors won’t be disappointed”, he said.
Allegro’s share price has risen about 40 per cent this year to 37 zlotys but remains below its listing price of 43 zlotys in 2020, when a surge in online shopping triggered by the pandemic made it Poland’s largest-ever initial public offering.
The company was founded 25 years ago and has more than 20mn active users across Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
Kuśmierz, who became Allegro’s CEO in May, plans to visit Brussels for talks with EU technology, trade and competition officials. The company is pushing for tighter safety standards on items such as toys imported from China, as well the removal of the customs exemption for low value shipments.
Trump’s tariff policy could “of course boost the growth of the whole industry”, Kuśmierz noted. While he said he did not support tariffs because of the uncertainty they create for business, US tariffs could “have a very good impact on our revenues, because almost everything will be just more expensive”.
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Brussels
